Spring Hill Garden Association to hold meeting on upcoming season

Mar. 05, 2013 @ 10:50 PM

DAVE LAVENDER

HUNTINGTON -- Is the thought of spring giving you gardening fever? If so, head out at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, as the Spring Hill Garden Association meets at The Room With A View at the Ritter Park Rose Garden.

The association will discuss the upcoming season of community gardening at the historic Spring Hill Cemetery.

Any gardener interested in renting a plot at the community garden is asked to attend.

The Spring Hill Cemetery garden is an 85-plot community garden tucked away in the back corner of the historic cemetery near Enslow Boulevard.

The community garden was started by former Cabell County agricultural extension agent John Lewis, who saw a program that talked about community gardens back in the 1970s at a national meeting.

For an annual fee of $30, gardeners get a 15-foot-by-30-foot garden plot.

Returning gardeners have until Friday, March 22, to sign up for their old plot. New gardeners will be accepted after that.

Volunteer organizer and veteran gardener Betty Given will meet new gardeners on the first floor of the Cabell County Public Library, 455 9th St., from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 23, to sign up new gardeners for their plots.

Plots will be available as soon as suitable weather allows for plowing and plotting off the lots, and they must be maintained throughout the season, which tentatively ends Oct. 31.

The association was formed two years ago to help organize the community gardeners to pay for increases in water costs, the cost of renting the plots from the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District that owns the cemetery, and the cost of plowing, maintenance and plowing under the crops.